YOUR BUSINESS IS OUR BUSINESS: There’s (more) gold in them thar ‘tailings!’

‘Over there,’ they call them ‘tailings’: the refuse part of crushed ore; the residue that’s separated in the preparation of various products – as in ‘grain tailings,’ ‘ore’ tailings’...

In Tanzania, we call them ‘makinikia,’ ‘mineral sands,’ ‘concentrates’... Lexicographers tell us that to ‘concentrate’ (also) means to ‘separate valuable material from...’ Hence: to ‘concentrate an ore!’ Boy!

Semantics aside, however, (ordinary) Tanzanians were recently alerted to real possibilities that the country had ‘lost’ anything between Sh183trn and Tsh380trn since 1998 or thereabouts through the dubious export of anything upto 61,320x20-tonne container-loads of concentrates! That’s according to the ‘findings’ of two extraordinaly Committees formed by President John Magufuli in March and April to probe ‘makinikia’ exports!

Indeed, the findings are stupendous... Arguably, they ‘explain’ why Tanzania – albeit phenomenally-endowed with natural resources, including minerals – is still home to the world’s top-twenty poorest populations, despite being under home-grown leaderships since (political)Independence 56 long years ago! With such potential God-given wealth, the findings a truly bitter pill to swallow. Uncertainly rules following the reports of the two Committees. More astounding details are bound to be unearthed as assorted law enforcement organs and related authorities interrogate/investigate persons allegedly behind the transactions, and other ‘leads’ identified by the Committees. Powerful politicians, Government/Public Service officials and private sector players, including mining officials associated with the tailings business, may find it difficult to exonerate themselves from blame/accountability – and even due judicial processes resulting in penal servitude, etc!

Hopefully, we’ll eventually know who or what’s to blame for these socio-economically tragic developments, whereby Tanzania ‘lost’ the equivalent of six-to-12 years of National Budget resources at roughly the FY-2017/18 Budget of Sh31trn!

Indeed, human factors may feature in this, generally in the forms of malfeasance, misfeasance, corruption, incompetence, negligence/oversight on the part of those involved in the transactions.

On the other hand, systemic failures may’ve accounted for this: loopholes in legislative and other frameworks resulting from sabotage, lack of due diligence, or a combination of both! Indeed, human activity and systemic shortcomings would be more than likely in this gigantic ‘makinikia/tailings’ scandal!

Oh, well; let’s leave it to the authorities to pursue to the logical conclusion...The story here today’s about the latent wealth in ‘makinikia/mineral tailings.’

For far TOO long, Tanzanians were led to believe that tailings are of a nuisance value: waste from mining operations that militate against efforts at environment protection/conserving/preservation! To a certain extent, that’s correct.

What we didn’t know is/was that, with ongoing technological advances, “tailing dumps are rapidly being converted into mineral resources...!”

Extraction of valuable metals from tailings, traditionally regarded as waste, has been researched by metallurgists, and developments in mineral-processing technologies make the re-treatment of tailings a profitable business.

“Several commercially-profitable enterprises have also been set up with the sole intention of re-treating tailings arising from South Africa’s Witwatersrand gold processing operations...” [/www2.deloitte.com/...resources/.../converting-tailings-dumps-into-mineral-reso..>].

Long ago, it was uneconomic to reprocess mining tailings and gangue. However, as mining techniques and mineral prices improve, what was once considered ‘waste’ is reprocessed to further recover minerals – and added returns on investments!

There’s more of that in the public domain today. Just ‘Google’ for ‘From Tailings to Treasure? Miners Make Money Reprocessing Tailings;’ ‘Gold tailings re-treatment an attractive proposition in current environment,’ et cetera...

Why hasn’t Tanzania come to that, pray? After all: there’s more gold – and other metals.

If Mark Twain were today alive and kicking in Tanzania – and still writing – he’d have correctly thundered: ‘there’s MORE THAN gold in them thar ‘makinikia’/tailings...’ Cheers!